When Dolores
Kunda asked to be assigned to the Hispanic marketing group
at Leo Burnett, friends and colleagues quietly told her she
might be making a "career-limiting move." After joining the
company in 1984 directly after graduating from the Kellogg
School, she had advanced from a trainee to senior account
executive and just returned from a two-year stint as the youngest
account director at Leo Burnett Mexico SA de CV. Now she was
requesting to become part of a small team with the primary
responsibility of translating existing campaigns into Spanish.

Today, Kunda's
strategy has been vindicated.

After becoming
head of the Hispanic marketing group in 1993, she immediately
began working to make the unit a stand-alone agency. "Everyone
thought we were a cost structure, just a service of the agency
for clients," she recalls. "So we ran a proxy P&L to measure
how we were performing, and
big surprise
we were making money."

In 1999, the group
became a separate entity and launched with its own name, Lápiz
(Spanish for pencil). Lápiz has grown into one of the
premier Hispanic marketing communications agencies in the
country, with more than $135 million in billables in 2002
(last public data) and blue chip clients such as Chase Bank,
Coca-Cola, Disney, General Motors, InBev Brewing, Sara Lee
and Wrigley. In fact, the firm competed against some 21,000
entries worldwide to win a Silver Lion Award at the 2005 Cannes
International Advertising Film Festival for its Kellogg's
Frosted Mini Wheats spot.

"This is big news
for the Hispanic market," says Kunda, a Washington, D.C.,
native of Puerto Rican heritage, who serves as president and
CEO of Lápiz. She often speaks about the importance of the
Hispanic market at conferences and to reporters from national
media outlets.

"Things have changed
tremendously in the last five years. The turning point was
the 2000 census. It really blew people out of the water when
the numbers came in and everyone could see how much the last
census had underestimated the growth of the Hispanic population,"
Kunda says. "There's a lot of saturation for many products
in the general market, and companies are looking to find new
targets. But if they're conducting separate marking efforts
in Chile or Latin America looking for potential markets, but
not pursuing the U.S. Hispanic market, they're missing a larger
and a more wealthy population."

Kunda
recently returned to Kellogg to attend a course offered by
the school's Center for Executive Women that prepares women
for board leadership roles. The Women's
Director Development Program made an impression on
her.

"It was fabulous,"
she says. "I would recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether
they want to be on a corporate board. It really makes you
think through your decisions, reflect on how to build a team
and how a financial picture can be distorted by someone with
an agenda."

The class consisted
entirely of women, yet Kunda says the course wasn't geared
toward women's issues in the boardroom, nor does she believe
that the discussions and atmosphere would have been different
if the class was mixed gender. But she does say that corporate
America needs more women and minorities active on boards.

"At this stage
of the game, I would hope that people not look at your gender,
but consider the value of what you bring to the table," she
states. "I can provide insight into Hispanic markets, and
that's something more companies need to know about."

Kunda is quick
to indicate that, even with the rise of companies such as
Lápiz and a more general awareness of Hispanics in America,
the job isn't done. Without demand from large corporate clients,
there is a significant gap in the hard data on Hispanic markets,
and absent those numbers, it is hard to illustrate the demographic's
buying power.

"We're still working
to get Hispanics at the table. We get recognized in this country
by having economic and political power," she says. "When companies
regularly speak to a group in a way that is respectful and
[indicates awareness of] their culture, you know that group
has arrived."